City of Basketball Love

Daniel Hughes (@dan1el_sun)
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Lately, Saint Joseph’s has been struggling offensively, and head coach Phil Martelli is holding everyone, including himself, accountable.

When the Hawks (8-9, 0-2 Big 5) face Penn (6-8, 0-2 Big 5) Saturday night they will try to bring a more efficient offense to the court than they have in recent outings.

Both teams head into their yearly matchup at the Palestra on a three-game losing streak. But for Martelli knows what he and the Hawks have to work on.

“We have to do everything better offensively,” Martelli said. “Individually we have to have players play better on an individual basis, and then I have to come up and be more demanding in terms of scheme and what we’re trying to run.”

Part of St. Joe’s’ offensive struggles certainly to do with the absence of star junior point guard Shavar Newkirk, who is out for the rest of the year after suffering a torn ACL late in the first half of a December 30 game against George Washington. Newkirk led the Hawks in scoring with 20.3 points on 33.7 minutes per game.

There’s also sophomore forward Pierfrancesco Oliva, who was lost for the year before the season began with a knee injury of his own..

In the first 12 games of the year, the Hawks averaged 72.8 points per game. In the five games after Newkirk’s injury, that number has dropped to 63.6 points per game.

St. Joe’s also has been committing more turnovers without Newkirk. In those first 12 games they gave up an average of 10.6 turnovers per game. Without the 6-foot guard on the floor in the past five outings, they have committed 16 turnovers per game.

“We turn the ball over at too high a rate,” Martelli said. “We scored 56 points the other night (against Massachusetts) and had 16 turnovers. We’re not beating anybody on the schedule with that being the situation.”

Newkirk, along with sophomore tri-captain point guard Lamarr Kimble split ball-handling duties for the Hawks. Kimble, now the lone starting point guard, averages 14.2 points on 36.4 minutes. With Newkirk being out, the Hawks have struggled early on in Atlantic-10 play.

After winning the conference tournament last year, St. Joe’s has fallen into the middle of the standings at 2-4 so far this season. This wasn't expected to be a banner year anyways after losing DeAndre' Bembry, Isaiah Miles and Aaron Brown from last year -- Martelli has never had a team without a returning double-figure scorer.

But St. Joe’s is a young team, and freshmen like 6-foot-7 forward Charlie Brown and 6-6 guard Nick Robinson have had to help their team in big ways. Brown, who has started every game for the Hawks, is also the team’s fourth-leading scorer, adding 10.8 points per game.

“I think we all step up. We all (have) to come together, just figure stuff out,” Brown said. “We’re a young team so we’re going to have some bumps and bruises along the way but as long as we stick together we’ll be fine.”

St. Joe’s will face a formidable Penn defense that ranks 54th in the nation in defensive turnover percentage and 56th in the nation in opponent 2-point field goal percentage, according to basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy.

On the other side of the ball, the Quakers offense may give the Hawks trouble, especially freshman forward A.J. Brodeur. Brodeur has turned quite a few heads in his short time on Walnut Street, but many who knew him before he came to Penn, including Martelli, were not too surprised to see the success he has had at the collegiate level.

“I’ve always been a big fan of his,” Martelli said. “He comes out on the floor and gets the ball, he plays on the elbow, he faces up, he gets a lot of action. We’re going to have to throw all our double teams at him.”

Besides scoring the ball himself, Brodeur can kick the ball out behind the arc to the bevy of talented shooters Penn has, including senior guard Matt Howard and junior guards Darnell Foreman and Caleb Wood.

Howard and Foreman shoot 37 percent and 32.3 percent from long range respectively, while Wood, a JUCO transfer from Lassen Community College in California is firing away from 3-point range at a 40.7 percent clip.

As a team, Penn shoots 33.6 percent from deep.

The Quakers have struggled early on in Ivy League play. After dropping their first three conference games against Princeton, Yale and Brown, they sit at dead last in the Ivy standings.

For both teams, the Palestra on Saturday night offers an opportunity to take out their early frustrations in conference play and steal a Big 5 win. Martelli sees it as a “blessing”.

“It’s Saturday night in Philadelphia playing basketball at the Palestra,” he said. “That’s got to be a positive thing.”